Turning Your Twitter Account Into a Lead Magnet

Many people have asked me about how to increase their Twitter followers. My take is this: You can get software to do this for you, you can even pay for followers or outsource it for someone else to do but, realistically, what you risk ending up with is endless lists of worthless followers. People who won’t be interested in your product, business or whatever you are trying to promote. If you are trying to promote your business, what you really need are targeted followers.

What you can do is use applications such as Tweepi or HootSuite to add targeted followers each day. One method is to sign into Tweepi and under the ‘Follow tweeps’ tab click ‘@user’s followers.’ Then enter the username of a business similar to yours and you can access all of their followers. You will then have lists of people who already have an interest in your niche market.

Another good tactic is to set up a new stream in HootSuite by entering a search for your subject area. This will then give you a stream of people whose tweets include your keyword, you can then add them one by one.

Once you start increasing your following there are a few things to keep in mind. Here are my top 10 tips for enticing new followers while keeping the interest of the ones you already have:

1. Upload a photo – many people will not follow anyone without a picture.

2. Make sure you have a bio – People do look at them. Tell people who you are and what your business is. Include a city – if you are a business it’s important for people to know where you are.

3. Add value – Link people to interesting resources. Come up with content that people want to pass onto their followers. This will encourage people to retweet you, giving you more exposure.

4. Keep it public – DM’s on Twitter are seen as unsociable. Reply to people publicly and keep everything out in the open.

5. Absolutely no spamming – Promote your blog posts etc. but make sure you balance this with useful content – at least three relevant tweets to every promotional link, or you risk coming across as a spammer.

6. Post frequently – But don’t overkill it. Three times a day is enough. To help you spread it out, you can use HootSuite to schedule your tweets at timed intervals.7. You want retweets – Posts have a 140-character limit, so don’t forget to keep your tweets short enough for people to add the RT symbol and username when they retweet you.

8. Link with others – Sharing is caring, retweet and connect with others. This is the only way to get people to introduce you to their followers.9. Be easy to find – make sure you link your Twitter account to your website, Facebook, blog, LinkedIn or anywhere else. Make it easy for people to find you.

10. Use hashtags – make yourself more visible by using hashtags relevant to whatever your business is. If there is a trending hashtag related to your area, get straight on the bandwagon because it means lots of people are tweeting about that term and people interested in the area will see your tweet. Get into a habit of checking what’s trending on a regular basis.

Finally don’t worry too much about the numbers to begin with. If you follow these strategies and add targeted people on a daily basis, you will build up targeted followers in no time.